A little mama writing about her perfectly imperfect life

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I’ve been thinking about this upcoming new year and I get butterflies in my stomach. Literally. There are big things that are about to happen in our lives and business and it gives me all the feels. I decided to come up with a theme word for 2018 and I think I’ve decided on “fresh”.

I love to decorate with live plants in our own home. I think something about the fact that they’re living just brings a breath of fresh air. They must be cared for and tended to. If that doesn’t happen, they won’t flourish. But if they’re taken care of they will thrive and make the space feel fresh and alive. I want us to embrace that same feeling of freshness in our life and business this year.

This next year will be full of that.

For starters, this year might bring a fresh new endeavor. The very first new home construction that Hartman Homes has ever done is on the horizon for 2018. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that we purchased some land a couple months ago. We’ve been toying several different ideas around in our minds and right now the idea of subdividing that land and building homes on it is winning. I guess that would end up being a mini “Hartman Homes” neighborhood.

My second thought with “fresh” is with design. I’ve found that when you design multiple kitchens, bathrooms, exteriors, etc for a living it’s easy to find a comfortable spot in design and stick to it. But I also get tired and bored of “trends” really quickly. For instance, I’ve been getting tired of the farmhouse craze that has taken over the world. This year, I’m challenging myself to continuously think outside the box and have fresh ideas when designing new spaces. Our drive is to do quality work that is “different” enough to set us apart from others.

And lastly, fresh beginnings are on the way. I don’t want to say too much too soon, but a big change is about to happen in our business and we couldn’t be more excited and nervous all at the same time. When we started working this business three years ago we had a specific goal in mind. That goal was to have freedom. We wanted freedom with our time so we could enjoy this life together and with our children. We didn’t want to miss a minute. We wanted financial freedom so we would be able to bless others and exercise our spiritual gifts of giving. We also wanted freedom to dream and be able to pursue those dreams. I’ve been thinking about sharing a bit more of our beginning story on here and maybe someday I will.

During the really difficult, exhausting, overworked times we’ve maintained the mindset to “live like no one else, so that one day you can live like no one else”. Does that make sense? Basically, don’t get comfortable. Pray harder and dream bigger. Pursue those dreams that God placed in your heart tirelessly. Be the driving force to accomplish those dreams.

So going into 2018, “fresh” is going to be the word that we claim as we embark on this new year full of fresh things. Thanks for reading and I pray you all have a blessed new year!

I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for ummm…about 2 months now. It’s certainly a good thing I don’t blog for a living, because I’d be starving. Haha. As much as I enjoy writing and blogging, it takes a lot of time and that’s not something I have much of these days.

Since my last blog post we listed this house for sale, sold it, purchased 5.5 acres of land (that we’re still not for sure what we’re going to do with, but it seemed like too good of an investment to pass up) and also purchased another house. We’ll probably start on this next house a little bit this month, but plan to take most of the month off to enjoy Christmas and then dive head first into the renovation in January. I’m going to try and do better with blogging through the renovation of this next house, if for no other reason than the fact that I enjoy going back and reading my old posts. I’m lame, I know! 😂

Alright, back to the creation of this master bathroom. Let me show the before pictures first.

So, what you’re seeing is correct; this room was not previously a bathroom. It was a generously sized den. We relocated the door to open into the bedroom next to it and closed off the door to the hallway. This small change made this an exclusive master ensuite. Or at least it would be once we added all the “bathroom” components.

Since we had an entirely blank slate to work with we were able to make the layout however we wanted. We had ample space to add a large 72″ double vanity, toilet, tile shower, and linen closet. We were able to keep and paint the original book shelves and repurpose them for bathroom storage.

The design theme for the entire house, and thus this bathroom, was “vintage and eclectic”. The color scheme was white and gray with hints of blue and green and those colors were tactfully incorporated into the design of this bathroom. As always, I had a lot of fun designing this space and I think it turned out perfect.

That’s all for now! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think! I’m in the process of designing two more bathrooms so tell me some ideas you’d like to see and I might try and incorporate them. Thanks for reading and keeping up with my sporadic blog posts!! Haha.

Well, it’s that time again! The most exciting blog posts for me to write are the ones with before and after pictures of our flip projects. I call them “projects” because they’re just that. These houses are a hobby for us. We LOVE breathing new life into an old house and making it new and fresh again. Of course it’s a very expensive and labor intensive hobby, but it’s also quite lucrative when it’s all said and done. So with that in mind these projects are more of a financial investment than anything. It’s just fun for us; we enjoy it and we make money. Win/win situation!

Don’t let my scarce blog posts fool you. These flips aren’t finished overnight. These are long, hard renovations. Right now we’re averaging about a 4 month timeline from demo day to staging day. There are moments in this process where we feel like the end is not in sight. But, then the day comes and we look around and there’s nothing else to add to our list of “to do’s”. And then as soon as that day approaches, I’m already starting to plan the design for the next one.

The blog today is going to encompass the entire main living spaces that includes: living room, kitchen, dining room, foyer, and sunroom. For this house my initial inspiration was this: a clean, neutral slate with bold pops of color and pattern. This is tricky, you see. If that wasn’t executed perfectly the house could end up looking one of two extremes. It could end up feeling tacky and sporadic or it could be too far the other direction and feel boring and tasteless. At one point during the process I was nervous and was worried the kitchen was too simple with whites and blacks, but once it all came together and the bold pops of color joined in at the end, I was so relieved. In my opinion, it turned out perfect, but I’ll let you (and the buyers) be the judge. I’ll add paint colors and such at the end of the post in case anyone is interested.

Now, the before pictures:

Kitchen and Dining

Foyer

Living Room

Sunroom

Now, on to the after pictures!!! Aka…the exciting part! 😬😬😬

Kitchen and Dining After

If you look closely in the picture below you can see the texture on the leathered granite countertops. Such a neat, unexpected detail…

Foyer After

This space, friends, turned out so fabulous. Now, of course, if you’re a person who only likes whites and no color then I’m sure it’s not tickling your fancy. But, for me, since I love a little personality…I think it’s great!

This is what you see on your left as soon as you walk in the front door.

And below is your view looking straight forward as you walk in the front door.

Living Room After

This tile around the fireplace….let me tell you….it’s even better in person, if that’s even possible! It’s so vintage and fun and …just perfect!

Sunroom After

Well, how do you feel about my green ceiling in the sunroom?? I literally LOVE it!! I feel like the ceiling is a place that often gets forgotten when design takes place, but it’s such a huge place to make an impact.

Well, that’s all for now. This beauty goes on the market next Tuesday, so wish us luck! And, if you’re interested let us know and we can put you in touch with our realtor. The house is 2300 sq feet with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Asking price is $187,500.

My baby is now six weeks old, but better late than never when it comes to recording his birth story. As any mom would understand, my lack of blogging lately is a result of having no free time these days. For those that may not know me personally, not only do I have a newborn at home, but I also have twin 3 year old boys, so my “free time” is literally non existent. The needs from these three precious boys are seriously constant. Even as I type this, I’m doing so while breast feeding. Multitasking at its finest!

Back to our birth story:

I’m going to start by talking about my hopes, desires, and fears going into this birth. The birth of my twins was pretty much every new mom’s worst nightmare. Very long story made very short: I was in very active active labor for 46 hours (in the hospital) after laboring at home the entire day before. I experienced several complications during my labor and after eventually pushing for 2 hours I had to have a cesarean section. So not only did I labor in vain, but then I had to recover from surgery while visiting 2 babies in 2 different NICU’s. I didn’t get to attempt breastfeeding with either of them for a long time (several days after birth with Maxton and 1 month after birth with Maverick). Not only did I not get to hold either of them after they were born, but I also have no memory of seeing them either. Granted they needed immediate care and I knew that beforehand, but every mom wants to see and hold the babies that she’s been carrying for 9 months. So, with this birth I was SO hopeful to have the special moment of the baby being born, put on my chest, and getting to nurse him immediately.

Thank the Lord the twins are doing great now and they are healthy and strong little toddlers, but their story made me very scared for this birth. I was worried I would have a similar experience this time. Of course my doctor was more than willing to schedule a c-section for me, but I was adamant that I wanted to have this baby naturally if at all possible.

At my 37 week check up I was dilated to a 2 and had been having lots of Braxton hicks contractions for the past week. My doctor told me that her guess was that I would go into labor sometime in the next week to 10 days. As a week came and went, there were no signs that I was any closer to going into labor. At my 38 week checkup I was still only dilated to a 2. I was a little bummed, but knew that he would come when he was ready.

At 38 weeks and 3 days we (me, my husband and our twins) spent all evening working at our flip house. I was purposefully not “taking it easy” because I was hoping the activity may help me have a baby! That night as we were doing our bedtime routine with the twins my back was hurting me so bad that I was literally crying as I was walking down the stairs and back to our bedroom. But, it never crossed my mind that I may be going into labor. That same night Maxton had a fever so Nathan gave him some medicine and set his alarm to get up and check on him one hour later. We went to bed and woke up when his alarm went off. I got up right after Nathan did and headed to use the restroom, and my water broke. It was almost exactly 12:00 midnight.

I yelled to Nathan, but only said his name because I didn’t want him to freak out. He got a little annoyed and was worried that I was going to wake the twins up when I said his name. When he came back downstairs I said “My water just broke.” And he said, “You’re kidding.” I laughed and replied, “I’m serious. That’s not something I would joke about.” Then he believed me and wanted to know what to do! Lol. I told him to just go ahead and call my Mama so she could go ahead and come over to stay with the twins while we went to the hospital. Very soon after that my contractions started and were only about 3-5 minutes apart.

We were in the car only 30 mins after my water broke. My contractions were starting to come faster and were intense enough that I could not talk through them. Nathan was driving about 80 miles an hour going up the road. I was trying to breathe through the contractions that were now coming about every 1-2 minutes. It was certainly like a Hollywood “drive to hospital with a woman in labor” movie scene. He had the hazard lights on and was trying to stay calm, but he was a little panicked. I wasn’t able to calmly focus and breathe through the contractions as much anymore. We made the 45 minute drive to the hospital in only 30 minutes.

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to walk into the hospital because of how intense my contractions were and you know what…there was a wheel chair sitting right in the door way. The Lord provides!! Nathan wheeled me up and I was hardly able to stand to be weighed and could barely answer the nurse’s questions for check in.

I was legitimately worried that I would be too far progressed to have an epidural and that was very scary to me. In my situation I actually needed to have an epidural since I was trying for a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean). When attempting for a VBAC there is always a very scary possibility of uterine rupture. That would occur at the location of the c-section scar during labor and could be fatal for the mom and/or baby. If that happened the need for an emergency c-section would be imminent. So basically, if that occurred and I did not have an epidural I would have to be intubated and put to sleep for the surgery. I certainly did not want that.

So anyways, when my cervix was checked in triage I was only dilated to a 3. I couldn’t believe it. I could tell that after that everybody started moving slower and didn’t seem to be taking me as seriously. When I finally got to a real room (about an hour later) my contractions were literally almost back to back and I was coming off the bed in pain with each one. I asked about an epidural and my nurse assured me that she had someone on the way, but that she had to start my IV first. She kept sticking me, but with each contraction my vein would blow. She finally said that she had just been trying to stick me for labs and would just go ahead and try to start an IV. I wasn’t very happy to discover that she hadn’t even attempted that yet, but I was contracting so hard that I couldn’t even speak to her to say anything. I finally said out loud, “I feel the need to push!” And both nurses in the room stopped and looked at me. It wasn’t but a moment after that when the resident showed up to do the epidural. My birth plan I had typed up said that I only wanted a fellow or attending to do the epidural, but at that point I think I would have let a med student try. Haha!

I was really worried though, for two reasons. Reason one was because I had a “1 in 100 chance” occurance that happened with my epidural with the twins where the epidural went IV and made my ears ring and go semi deaf, but it didn’t numb me. My second concern was that I was hardly having any break in between contractions and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to hold still while she attempted the epidural, which is very important. But once again, the Lord provides!! I had an entire minute break in contractions and was able to hold still and she successfully got the epidural in on the first try.

My nurse immediately checked me and she said “Oh my! I don’t even feel your cervix. Like, you’re way past a ten. His head is right here.” I said, “I believe you! I’ve felt the need to push for the past hour.” I pushed about three times right then and she said she was going to call and get the doctor in the room so we could have our baby…only 3 hours after my water broke. She got off the phone with my doctor and said, “I totally forgot. We have to get antibiotics in you since your group B Strep was positive.” They let an hour of antibiotics run through my IV (I’ve been told the normal time to let that run is 4 hours). As soon as that hour was done, I pushed twice with the nurse, and then she got the doctors in the room. I literally pushed once after the doctor got there and Atticus Michael was born at 4:24 am.

It was such a beautiful moment. Nathan and I both had tears in our eyes as they laid Atticus on my chest. He started nursing immediately and Nathan got to cut his umbilical cord. Our biggest wishes came true! It was perfect. We were thrilled. Every single wish that I had came true…a very short labor, a vaginal birth, success with the epidural, and getting to hold and see Atticus once he was born! And to top it off…he never was taken from me. He literally was right on my chest nearly our entire stay at the hospital. It was beautiful!

Hey ya’ll! We (along with a couple professionals) have been working non stop for the past two and a half weeks to renovate our master bathroom. We timed our beach vacation to where we would miss the first week of the chaos, which was so smart! Living in a construction zone with two little kiddos is not a fun thing, so I’m glad we thought that through and planned appropriately.

I started the designing and shopping for this bathroom in April to make sure we had everything here and ready to go when we left for vacation. For example, the vanity we purchased took almost two months to be built and shipped so if I hadn’t started the process early then it would have never been here by the time we needed it.

Let me start with telling how we designed this space. (This is also how we design all of our projects.) We brainstorm, take pictures, search Pinterest or Google, and eventually sketch out what we want. We’ve learned that pictures speak volumes, so sometimes we already have an idea in our minds and then try to find a picture to help our crew visualize what we’re talking about. For example…here are the pictures we used in creating our bathroom.

Then Nathan sketches out our own plans for how we want the layout to be. He is a much better artist than me, so this is a team effort. I design, then explain to him what I’m thinking…all while he is sketching. We make a great team!

These papers (along with several meetings with our guys) are turned over and lay the blue print for our finished product. This is how we do our flip projects too! Lots and lots of planning…

So now let’s start with some before pictures of this bathroom. To the best of my knowledge, this bathroom was original to when our house was built (except for new light fixtures and new paint that we added three years ago) so it definitely needed some TLC. It was in fine working order, but was way out dated and needed much more than a “facelift”. A facelift, in my mind, would be something simple like fresh paint, new countertops, etc. We decided that if we were going to tackle this room, we were going to really do it right. We rearranged the entire layout of this room. The old “toilet and shower room” is going to be a second master closet, but it is not finished yet. I’ll share pictures of that room once it is done.

Ok…back to before pictures.

One thing we always loved about this house is how big our master bathroom is. From the first day we walked through this house, we knew it had tons of potential. I was so excited when we finally decided to take the plunge and renovate it.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I wanted this space to be a good blend of many different styles including: farmhouse, industrial, cottage… as well as using some key pieces that we found in Charleston, SC. So basically my personal taste is a big mixture of all different decorating styles. I’ll list all of the sources for the items at the end of the post.

Here are some “after demo day” pictures of the bathroom.

And now for a couple details about the design for our new space. We wanted tons of storage in our shower so we had them build the tub out from the wall so we would have additional storage, as well as elbow room all the way around (this makes the shower seem so much bigger). We also had them build a small bench at the back to serve as additional storage or as a sitting place. This small change also makes the inside of the shower much bigger. The “soap box” runs the length of the shower to ensure we will never run out of space for our shower stuff. All of these seemingly small details make such a big difference in how custom this bathroom feels.

The built-in shelving next to the shower was all custom built by Nathan. I wanted the shelving to be chunky, so we went with 2″x12″ boards and attached two of them together to make our shelves 24″ deep. I mixed two different stains (Minwax’s Special Walnut and Minwax’s Dark Walnut) to try and match the stain of the vanity. After sanding the boards down to make them nice and smooth, I applied one coat of stain and (after letting it completely dry) added two coats of polyurethane. We were both thrilled with the end result.

Okay, and now for the after pictures…because I know that’s all you guys really care about. Haha. I’m kidding. But really…when I read these types of blog posts the pictures are the best part.

This first picture is the view directly after walking in to the bathroom from our bedroom.

Well, there it is folks! We’ve certainly enjoyed being able to design a space for ourselves and have already enjoyed it. I’ve been taking baths in the tub all week long (even before the rest of the space was finished!)

***I need to add that this bath fan is the coolest thing ever! It is blue tooth capable, so I can sync it to my phone to listen to music through the speakers. It has a water proof remote control for inside the shower. It also has a blue night light and a regular white LED light, as well as the normal fan part. This was a spur of the moment purchase that we have thoroughly enjoyed!***

We’ve got so much going on right now. Sometimes I think we’re a little bit wacko to tackle so much at one time…but alas, here we are!

First off we’re elbow deep into our current flip house. It’s been 3 weeks since demo day and we’ve had stuff going on almost each day. We had the new HVAC system with a gas furnace installed last week. This week the new rooms started being framed, we had a new roof put on, and the painting started. I’ve pretty much finished all of the designing and shopping for this house already. All of the bathroom fixtures, lighting, tile, and paint has been purchased. I am SO stoked for this house to start taking shape. I decided to go with a creamy White for the walls (exact color is Sherwin William’s Drift of Mist) and a medium gray (Sherwin William’s Dorian Gray) for all of the trim and interior doors. This house had fabulous, thick old trim and I wanted it to be a highlighted feature in the design of this house. Here’s a sneak peek of these colors.

As soon as the kitchen cabinets are finished being painted (in Sherwin William’s Alabaster), we will select the granite so it can be installed.

Once the bathrooms start coming together I’ll share details of those rooms. Here’s a hint, we’re creating an enormous master suite by turning the old den into the master bath!! Whoo, I can hardly wait! It’s going to be incredible!

My goal is to have most of my design work completed for this house before our baby makes his appearance in the next several weeks. This will allow me to have some necessary time off from this project after he is born.

The next project that we have going on is at our house. At this very moment our master bathroom is fully gutted and is about to receive a complete makeover. We’re also hoping to have this done before the baby comes, hopefully even in this next week. We’re rearranging the layout of the room, we’ve removed 2 closets and are adding a new walk in closet, adding all new tile, a new vanity, new shower, fresh paint, lighting, fixtures, etc. I’m SO excited!

My vision for this bathroom was for it to be a good mixture of several styles and not feel too “trendy”. I want it to be classy enough to last for a long, long time. The goal of the design is for it to feel clean and fresh with a hint of a historical, Charleston feel, a hint of farmhouse, and a hint of industrial. But not too much of any of those. I want it to feel fresh and airy. I’ll share a few individual pictures of some of the items going into this bathroom.

This gorgeous, classy tile is perfect! I knew it was the right one the moment I found it!! We will use it to cover the floor and the large soap box in the shower will be in this tile too!

This 72″ vanity is handmade from reclaimed wood and will have two above mount white, rectangle sinks on it.

These lights that we decided to use for above the vanity were the perfect mixture of industrial and farmhouse. We have three of these lights that will be to the left, middle, and right of the round, brass rimmed mirrors.

The tub/shower will be tiled in a large white subway tile with charcoal colored grout. The wall behind the toilet will also be tiled in this same subway tile. The rest of the walls are going to be painted in a bright, fresh…wait for it…green!! Yes, green! Imagine a creamy sage green, but a bit brighter. I’m so excited! Another feature I’m pretty excited about are these built in shelves next to the shower. They will look kinda like this.

One of the design staples that inspired this room came from a purchase we made during our recent trip to Charleston, SC. We love it there so much and wanted to incorporate some pieces from there into our new bathroom. I purchased two old prints (one of a painting of the battery and downtown area and one old map). I framed them in antique brass frames and they will be hung above the toilet on the tile wall. Can you get a sense yet of the feeling I’m trying to achieve in here?! Ahh, I can feel it and can’t wait to see it all come together!

Stay tuned for the before and after pictures as soon as this room is finished! I promise I’ll do a blog post.

In today’s blog post I’m going to share the reveal of our new baby boy’s nursery. As of today I’m 29 weeks pregnant, so he won’t be here for about another two months or so but we had about a month “break” in our home renovation schedule/timeline so we decided to use that opportunity to get the nursery accomplished and not leave it waiting until the last minute.

Before I start with the nursery pictures, I’ll give an update from Hartman Homes. In my last blog post I mentioned that we were about a week away from closing on the sale of our 3rd flip house. Well, praise the Lord, that went smoothly and we closed on it exactly as scheduled! And then a week later we closed on the house we bid on and purchased at auction in April. Exciting stuff!! Demo day for that house is scheduled for next Saturday, so stay tuned for an update soon after!

Alrighty, back to the nursery reveal. This room previously functioned as a guest bedroom. Due to the fact that all of Nathan’s family live at least 1000 miles away from us, that room was utilized quite frequently. However, we had no option but to turn it into a nursery to accommodate our newest arrival. Here is a picture of how this room previously looked.

So, my vision for this nursery was for it to be masculine and have a vintage feel to it, yet not have a specific theme. I’m not big on specific themed nurseries these days… like nautical, or a certain cartoon character, or monster themed, etc. I feel like that limits the room so much, and also doesn’t allow for it to grow with the child.

I chose to do navy blue walls and chose the Sherwin Williams color “Anchor’s Aweigh”. The room already had a bead board accent wall and we painted it in Sherwin William’s “Greek Villa” which is a creamy white.

One of the most exciting parts of this room is the fact that it cost me zero dollars! Let me explain. I sold almost everything out of this room either through Craigslist, FB marketplace, and at a yard sale that we had. I then used that money to furnish this nursery. We also reused a crib and changing table/dresser from the twins old nursery, which was free. The rocking chair, twin bed, and curtains we previously had as well. The rug was previously used by Hartman Interiors as a staging item, but I reclaimed it to belong in this nursery after I realized how well it matched.

Some people may think that it’s odd that we keep a twin bed in a baby’s nursery, but we have found that it to be a good idea. Any parent knows that when you have a baby, there’s a high probability that one of the two parents will end up staying in the nursery, even if only for a few hours every now and then. For us, we prefer to be comfortable when sleeping in the room with a sick or fussy baby. The answer for that is to provide a bed for the adult. The bedding on the twin bed used to be on my bed when I was a little girl and my mama had saved it and given it to me. The bed itself was owned by Nathan’s great grandmother years ago and is over 100 years old. I think it’s so cool how this room brings in history from both of our families.

The rest of the items I purchased specifically for the room and I’ll share the sources at the end of this post.

Also, we always choose to keep our name choice a secret until the baby is born, but these pictures give a hint. The initials are above the bed, but we won’t be sharing the actual name until he is born.